The present invention relates to a fuel gauge operation scheme, and more particularly to a scheme for providing an apparatus used with a processor of a portable device to perform at least one part of fuel gauge operation for a battery of the portable device when the processor enters a sleep mode.
Generally speaking, a conventional scheme for performing fuel gauge operation for a battery may be completely implemented and achieved by using software applications/operations running on a processor of a portable device. This can calculate power consumption caused by the software applications/operations and thus estimate the available power of the battery. In some situations, the processor may enter a sleep mode to save power, and the software applications/operations are deactivated. However, some peripheral circuits within the portable device are not disabled and may still consume power from the battery. As a result, the conventional scheme cannot perform fuel gauge operation for the battery since the software applications/operations are deactivated.